Charles McGee Unveiling & United We StandMetro Detroit Community Reunion

Saturday, July 23, 2016 at 3:30 PM

City… Suburbs… Metropolitan Detroit: Family, friends, and neighbors across the region are invited to “Reunite at The Wright” Saturday, July 23, 2016 for the historic unveiling of Kresge Eminent Artist Charles McGee’s landmark sculpture, United We Stand. This massive twenty-foot by twenty-foot installation, McGee’s most ambitious work to date, will serve as a stunning beacon of hope on The Wright Museum’s grounds, and be visible day and night from both Warren Avenue and Farnsworth Street.

The unveiling takes place as the centerpiece of a free community reunion celebration featuring entertainment, family activities, food trucks, and performances by Poet Laureate of the Detroit Poet Laureate Naomi Long Madgett, acclaimed hip hop and spoken word artists Mike Ellison and jessica Care moore, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers' Satori Shakoor, Mahogany @ The Museum's Joel Fluent Greene, DJ Equad, Chi Amen-Ra, Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe, Bryce Detroit, DJ Maestro, Tawana "Honeycomb" Petty, Michael Reyes, Najwa Zebian,Piper Carter, Charity Ward, the "United We Hustle" dance party featuring the world premier of DJ Maestro's United We Stand Hustle and much more. This celebration is free and open to the public; BYOC (bring your own chair) is recommended.

McGee, at 91 years of age, has built a lifelong legacy of mentorship, community service, and arts advocacy, while maintaining a cutting edge, transformative practice. On any given day, one can find him at his computer experimenting and designing fantastic works of art. Togetherness, unity and balance have been the major themes of McGee’s lifetime of creativity and United We Stand directly reflects these principles.

The unveiling marks the beginning of The Wright Museum’s yearlong commemoration of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. In addition to an exhibition recalling the period leading up to and including that fateful event, ongoing programming will feature a diversity of presenters exploring the complex nature of insurrections that have occurred in the United States and investigate, through multiple perspectives, their causes and effects.

United We Stand will serve as a steadfast reminder that we are all interconnected, that we are of one Detroit, and that we share one human history.

McGee says it best: “We are all connected and we are all essentially important to the process of everything.”

United We Stand has been made possible by the generous support of The Joyce Foundation, Mrs. Linda Forte & Mr. Tyrone Davenport, The Kresge Foundation, Ms. Barbara J. Mahone, Mrs. Serena & Mr. Kieth Cockrell, Dr. Vivian Carpenter & Mr. Jon Barfield, the Board of Trustees of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and project supporters through the 2015 Crain’s Detroit Homecoming.